by Julie Miller
How did he go about creating a relationship when everyone was counting on him to maintain the status quo? What if said relationship didn’t work out? Did he risk upsetting the family vibe when they were just beginning to come out of the dark hole that had captured them all after his father’s death? He’d be a marked man if he wound up hurting Brooke. And after all she’d done for the Kincaids, that’d be one hell of a heap of guilt he’d have to live with if he said or did anything to cause her pain.
And what about Brooke herself? If she was the kind of woman who’d settle for a weekend fling, then he’d turn in his badge. He had her pegged as one of those old-fashioned, forever kind of women. After Hayley, he was probably too damn cynical to really believe in forever. But Brooke deserved nothing less.
He’d be smarter with his emotions the next time he tried a relationship. Maybe he could turn off that part of him and just enjoy the physical aspect of what Brooke had offered. They could have some fun as he taught her about sex and intimacy. She’d spruced up her hair and glasses, had tapped into an inner strength and growing confidence. It seemed a logical next step—school her in the arts of desire, then walk away with no regrets. Let some other man be the lucky recipient of Brooke’s beautiful smiles and untapped passion.
“Hell.” Atticus swerved, nearly driving past his exit as he envisioned the possibility of Brooke wrapping herself around another man the way she’d embraced him last night. That idea sat about as well as knowing his father’s killer was still a free man.
BROOKE DREADED opening the mail this morning. But with Mitch Taylor standing right beside her, and her buddy, Mirza Patel, tinkering with her computer at her desk, she had plenty of support around her to accomplish the task.
She finally inhaled a deep breath after the last envelope revealed nothing more disturbing than yet another report Mitch had been asked to write. “You know, it’s been something different each time—the roses, the note, the call, following me—maybe I don’t have to worry about any more bizarre messages.”
Mitch took the stack of letters from her hands. “And maybe it means he’s ready to step it up to something more dangerous.”
“What is it with you cops and your pep talks?” She tried to raise a smile, but her facial muscles railed against the effort.
“It can be unpredictable work. But understanding what you may be up against improves your chances of survival and success.”
“You’re right, of course.” While she appreciated Mitch’s kindly yet straightforward approach to their working relationship, she missed the centering calm she felt when Atticus touched her arm or squeezed her hand or brushed her hair off her face. They were subtle touches, yet very personal, very intimate connections that hinted at the strength and depth of the man behind the touch. She could use a little of that strength to ground the edgy, unsettled feeling plaguing her this morning.
“All the same, we’ll make this part of our daily routine for now,” Mitch continued. “And if you receive anything like that at home, put it in a plastic bag to preserve any prints or DNA evidence, and call Atticus or bring it in to me.”
“You don’t think there’s any chance that he’ll lose interest and stop harassing me?” Atticus hadn’t thought so, and she could read the agreement on Mitch’s stern face even before he answered.
“It’s been my experience that a stalker won’t stop until you stop him.” And how was she supposed to do that? Mitch sorted through the papers one more time, handing off one memo for Brooke to answer and carrying the others to his in-box. She followed him into his office, jotting down further instructions for the remainder of the day. A few minutes later, Mitch pulled his jacket from the coatrack beside the door and shrugged it on over his shoulders. “If you leave the building for any reason—even just to go down the street for lunch—I want you to tell me, or the desk sergeant if I’m not here. I want to be able to track you down in an instant, no matter where you are.”
Brooke smiled. Though he didn’t offer the comfort she craved from a certain detective, her new boss was every bit the watchdog Atticus had claimed he would be. “Yes, sir.”
“What did I say about that sir stuff?” Mitch offered her an indulgent smile. “Don’t think you’re doing me any favors by keeping quiet about this. Atticus was right to have you tell me about these contacts. If someone in my office is being harassed, then I’m being harassed. And I don’t take too kindly to that.”
“Thanks, Mitch. It’s nice to know I won’t have to worry about that…issue… here are work.”
He nodded toward Mirza. “Now you go back to your computer training. I’m heading out to my lunch meeting with the commissioner. If you leave, remember, tell Sergeant Wheeler.”
“I will.” Though still somewhat rattled by this morning’s strange encounter with Tony Fierro, Brooke felt a little more settled in her own skin knowing that she not only had the Kincaid family in her corner, but she now had a precinct chief looking out for her. If Tony was up to something, as Atticus suspected—if anyone was up to something—she’d have plenty of people watching her back. With no new messages in the mail or phone calls to haunt her, maybe she could actually get some work done yet this morning. She turned to her former classmate. “So, you promised to show me a shortcut in the presentation program.”
Mirza’s white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin as he smiled. “Yes. Of course, you can follow the documentation in the manual, but I have shortcuts for every aspect of this system that I know you will enjoy.”
An hour or so later, Brooke had already pieced together a mock presentation and customized the layout of her desktop when she hit the first glitch in the Caldwell Tech software. She frowned at the frozen screen. “It’s locking up when I type in my password to access my e-mail. Is there a default I need to access before I can personalize all my settings?”
“No, it shouldn’t…” Mirza’s black eyebrows came together like two woolly caterpillars. “Let me try something.” He typed in a series of command codes, but the screen didn’t so much as blink. Brooke asked if simply rebooting the program would clear the system. He shook his head, still frowning. “You’d lose all of the settings you just created.”
“Not a problem. I could easily recreate them—I had a good teacher who showed me how.”
Mirza ignored the compliment and climbed under the desk to follow a bundle of cords to the wall behind her. “Did I forget to connect the access wire?”
Brooke rolled her chair out of the way and asked, “Did you find the cord you left in here yesterday? Detective Kincaid said you came back to my office after I’d left to pick up some equipment you’d left behind.”
“No. I found it in my case, after all. I had put it in the wrong compartment.” Mirza pulled a pair of snips from his belt and continued to work. “Your detective friend gave me quite a fright. I thought he was going to arrest me.”
“Atticus can be very protective. More intimidating than he realizes, I think. But he’s just being a—” she wouldn’t fool herself “—a good friend.”
Mirza’s soft cheer diverted her attention from going down the frustrations of Heartache Row again. “Try it now.”
Brooke entered her password, and nearly fainted at the first message scrolling onto her screen.
MY PRETTY LADY in block letters across the top of the e-mail was the least of her worries.
The soft laughter clogged her ears and grew to a deafening roar inside her head.
There was her face—a recent photo, taken from a distance—with the limestone walls of her home in the background.
And then… Brooke clutched her hand over her mouth as her stomach twisted into a sickened knot. The rational part of her brain knew that half-naked body wasn’t hers. She knew the lily-white arms holding that body had never held hers. She knew the cuts, the mutilation, the blood—weren’t her.
But it was her face spliced into the graphic image on her computer screen.
It was her terror welling up in her throat.<
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“What’s this? A reminder so you don’t lock yourself out at night?”
Brooke felt the hand at her neck and screamed.
She jumped back from the unwelcome touch, knocked her chair over, wiped out the blotter and jar of pens and pencils from the top of her desk.
“Whoa. Whoa. Whoa.” Mirza was pale beneath his tan. He held up his hands in surrender as he stood. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I did not mean to touch you.”
She’d screamed. This room would be swarming with cops in two seconds. They’d see that awful picture. Mirza could turn around and see that awful picture.
Acting on pure instinct, Brooke reached around her friend and hit a key to hide the picture on the screen. Maggie Wheeler, the desk sergeant, was suddenly at the door. Brooke waved that she was okay. “I’m sorry. I just got startled. And then I knocked stuff over. But I’m okay. False alarm.”
“You’re sure?” Maggie looked as tough as any male counterpart with her blue uniform and six-foot stature. She didn’t seem to know whether to keep her eye on Brooke or Mirza.
Brooke glanced over and saw that Mirza’s hands were still raised in surrender. No wonder Maggie was suspicious. “Put your hands down.” When Mirza slowly lowered his hands to his sides, Brooke turned to Maggie again. She’d already sensed the possibility of making a friend here, but not if she continued to come across as paranoid or flighty. “I’m sorry, Maggie. There was a crude picture on the screen, and I overreacted.”
Maggie tucked her ash-blond hair into her ponytail. “Stuff like that isn’t supposed to get through the KCPD filters.”
Brooke pointed up at Mirza. “Well, I’ve got the tech guy here. I’ll have him look into it. I promise, I’m fine.”
After all, a picture couldn’t hurt her, could it?
“Detective Kincaid is out at a crime scene, but if you want I can call him.”
And tell him what? Laughing Man had raised the stakes again? What could Atticus do but look at the sick photo, too? She’d save it in a file as evidence, but she wouldn’t call him away from his job just to hold her hand. Forcing herself to breathe evenly again, willing her pulse to steady, she adjusted her glasses on her nose and smiled. “I’ll contact Detective Kincaid myself. Thanks, Maggie.”
With a nod, Maggie reluctantly returned to her post at the sergeant’s desk and Brooke stooped down to pick up the mess she’d made. “I’m sorry, Mirza. You asked me a question?”
He crawled beside her to help with the cleanup. “The key around your neck. Do you wear it so you do not lose it?”
The key.
Brooke clutched it and sat back on her haunches. She mentally replayed the events at the house that morning. It wasn’t the charm Tony Fierro had been ogling, and it certainly wasn’t the cleavage. “It’s the key.”
“Yes, the key.” Mirza misinterpreted her thoughts. “I was asking about it.”
Brooke pushed to her feet and reached for the telephone. Tony Fierro had served time for robbery. Did he think the key was an opportunity to steal from them? Did he think they’d hidden a strongbox at the house? That this tiny key could give him access to three women’s fortunes?
Or was it possible that Tony Fierro knew exactly what that key was for, and who had planted it in her home?
She apparently had a long way to go to be as smart about people as Atticus was.
The phone at the house rang until the answering machine picked up. That was reassuring. Not. Peggy and Louise could be working outside or running errands. But she’d feel a lot safer about them being at the house with Tony if she could warn them of her suspicions. She left a message for them to call her ASAP and then hung up.
“I am so buying them cell phones for their birthdays this year,” she muttered, crossing to dig her own phone from the depths of her purse. She didn’t want to worry. Louise had probably gone off on some design tangent and Peggy was busy arguing a more sensible, affordable alternative. They were preoccupied with their own business, that was all.
She hoped that was all.
“Brooke, is something wrong?” Mirza had righted her chair and was shutting down her e-mail. “Is there something I can do to help?”
Hold that thought, she indicated, holding up one finger. Once she found Truman McCarthy’s number on her cell phone, she dialed it. After three rings, the contractor picked up. “Mr. McCarthy? Brooke Hansford here. Are my aunts around the house, by any chance? I just tried to call.”
His impatient huff sounded as though she’d interrupted something important, but his deep voice was as polite and professional as always. “I sent them out to run some errands.”
“You did?”
She didn’t expect the apology that followed. “I don’t know what the trouble is yet, but we ran into some wiring problems this morning. Either something disconnected or we hit a juncture when we were installing the floor vents. I’ve got an electrician down in the crawl space now. We’ll get it taken care of and get it cleaned up so you can sleep here tonight.”
Floor vents? She thought Louise’s streamlined design called for all the vents to be in the arched ceiling. “Why would someone cut a hole in the floor?”
Mr. McCarthy’s laugh was a wry one. “Well, I saw your handiwork over the sunporch door this morning. I was beginning to think your aunt Louise had found something else she didn’t like about my work.”
“Sorry about that. Something got sealed in when you were putting up the new archway.”
“Oh? Did you find it?”
“Yes. But I didn’t realize there was a problem with the electricity. Everything worked fine this morning.”
“It was a surprise to me, too. I thought we were going to get started on laying the flooring upstairs, but this will take most of the day to make sure all the wiring is shipshape from top to bottom before we close it in.”
“I understand. I’m glad you’re there to take care of it.”
Maybe she shouldn’t be sharing so much information with McCarthy, but until she could reach her aunts, she had to trust someone. “Mr. McCarthy…is Tony Fierro still there working?”
What would she say when McCarthy put him on the line?
“He left with your aunts about an hour ago. Took his truck and they drove your car. They’re at the nursery picking out flowers to plant in the garden.”
Brooke didn’t remember thanking him or saying goodbye. But the dread pumping through her veins charged her heart with adrenaline and cleared her head to what she must do next.
She walked straight out to Atticus’s desk and verified what Maggie had told her, that he was out on a call. She started to jot a quick note—Find me. But Atticus and Major Taylor both had made it clear that she should contact one of them if she heard from Laughing Man again. So Brooke flipped open her cell and dialed Atticus’s number.
Voice mail. Damn. She had a hard enough time carrying on a conversation sometimes, but there was always something in her brain that froze up the instant a machine beeped and demanded a concise, coherent message. “It’s me, Atticus. Brooke. Um…I got an e-mail you’ll want to see. I’ll meet you at the bank. If you can still make it. At one, maybe? And, um, I’m going to see my aunts. I’m worried about them. Okay? Call me. Or, I’ll see you later. Bye.”
She rolled her eyes as she ended the message. “That’ll make him think I’m an idiot.”
She’d been aware of Mirza following her out of the office, so when he touched her arm this time, she didn’t jump. “Is everything all right? You are running around like a crazy person.”
Crazy maybe. But smart.
She wasn’t going to go running off to face Tony Fierro by herself. But she wasn’t going to wait to find out if her aunts were safe alone with him, either. She spotted the blond detective sitting at a corner desk and crossed the room to introduce herself.
“Detective Grove? Hi, I’m Brooke Hansford, Major Taylor’s new assistant.” He stood. And stood. And continued to stand, forcing her to tilt her head back. But his big hand
seemed friendly enough as he extended it in greeting.
“Nice to officially meet you, ma’am.”
She refused the seat he offered. This wouldn’t take long. “You may or may not know that I was John Kincaid’s assistant at the time of his…murder.”
“I recognize the name.”
Brooke nodded. Atticus might shoot her later, but she wasn’t going to wait to prove her suspicions. “I think John tried to tell me something before he died. Unfortunately, he made a puzzle out of it, so it’s taking me some time to find all the pieces and make sense of them.”
“You mean something about his murder?” She detected a surprising astuteness behind his prizefighter’s face.
“Possibly. It could wind up being something personal, but if it does have something to do with the investigation into his death, you’d be the man I’d talk to, right?”
“What kind of message are you talking about?”
Brooke held up the safe-deposit-box key. “Atticus and I are going to the Cattlemen’s Bank over on Grand Avenue this afternoon to find out. Don’t get him into trouble, please. He’s only trying to help me. Would you like to join us? It could be nothing, but—”
“It could be everything.” Grove nodded. “I’ll be there.”
“And if I’m late, you’ll tell Atticus, right?” You’ll call out the troops? Comb the city?
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Thanks.” Without wasting another breath, Brooke turned around and headed back to her office. She linked her arm through Mirza’s and pulled him along with her. “Do you have your car with you?”
“Yes.”
“Will you give me a ride?”
“Of course. But tell me what is going on.”
“I need to find my aunts right away. I’m worried that something is terribly wrong.”
“YOU’VE GOT SOMEBODY else after Brooke Hansford, don’t you?”
Antonio’s employer rose behind the desk. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you gone mad?”
Their meetings had always been arranged by a phone call, the locations always of the boss’s choosing. But this morning, in Brooke Hansford’s kitchen, Antonio had heard enough to become suspicious.